Vivie shook her head. “I can’t.”
Evelyn rose from the bed and went toward the door. Just as she was about to open it, Vivie hugged her, then kissed her fiercely on the cheek. “I love you.”
Evelyn held her sister close. “I love you too. Please go to sleep soon.”
Vivie said she would try, and Evelyn went to Margaret’s room, falling asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Evelyn woke to the sound of rain. She rolled over to go back to sleep, but Margaret was snoring. She could tolerate it in Fred, but not in her sister. And so, with a sigh, Evelyn sat up, swung her feet over the edge of the bed, and padded barefoot down the hall to Vivie’s room. The curtains were drawn and the sliver of deep gray dawn that peeked around the edges failed to illuminate the bed. Evelyn walked slowly, a hand out unnecessarily as she knew each inch of the room, until she reached the bed, where she lay down to snuggle into her sister.
Except Vivie wasn’t there. Evelyn patted around the bed, her eyes snapping open when she touched a piece of paper. She reached to turn on the nightstand lamp, almost knocking it over in the process, her eyes adjusting slowly to the paper in front of her, which fluttered to the bed after she read it, her hand clasped to her mouth.
She went down the stairs swiftly in the darkness, toward her parents’ room, the paper clutched tightly in her hand, but there was a light in the kitchen. Vivie, she thought in relief, bursting through the doorway.
But it wasn’t Vivie.
Her father sat at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee. “You’re up early,” he said.
Evelyn sank to the floor at his feet. “Oh, Papa,” she sobbed.
“What’s this? What’s wrong?”
“Vivie—”
“Vivie will be fine. You were.”
Evelyn looked up at him, tears pouring down her face. “Papa, she’s gone.”
He stood. “She went to New York? After—？”
“No. Papa, she left a note. She—” She couldn’t say the words, holding the paper out to her father, who took it, his dark complexion turning ashen as he read.
“No.”
“We have to call the police—”
Joseph wiped his brow, then rose and went to the kitchen sink, pulling a book of matches from his pocket. He struck one and lit a corner of the letter as Evelyn watched, horrified.
“What are you doing?”
He waited until the letter was gone before turning back to her. He had never looked old to Evelyn until that moment. “We will tell the police she is missing. But whatever happened, it was an accident.”
Evelyn’s mouth dropped open, her eyes narrowed in pain. “That’s what you care about? People knowing?”
Joseph crossed to her and gripped her arms tightly. “Just one person. Don’t you understand? This will destroy your mother.”
“She deserves it,” Evelyn said bitterly, her own pain too great to worry about her mother’s. “She’s not innocent.”
Her father’s shoulders fell, and Evelyn saw the tears in his eyes. “Please, Evelyn. If you won’t for her, then for me. We have to make them believe it was an accident. I—I can’t lose her too.” He released her arms and collapsed to the kitchen table, his body wracked with silent sobs that Evelyn watched with alarmed fascination. She had never seen a grown man cry, let alone her father.
Evelyn stood, fighting her own grief as she realized what she needed to do for her father’s sake. “Don’t call the police yet. You need—you need to pretend you don’t know. We’ll find that she’s missing together. When I get back.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see someone who can help us.” Evelyn tiptoed out of the kitchen, tossed a slicker that hung on a hook by the front door over her nightgown, and slipped silently down the cottage steps in the misty rain.
For an interminable moment, she stood at the edge of the road, peering through the trees and scanning the bluffs, hoping against hope that her sister would still be standing there.
But there was no one.
Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she climbed into the car and looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Well, she thought grimly, he won’t think I’m there to win him back. She put the car in drive, her heart pounding, and went to the only person who could help her.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“Tony,” I breathed, my eyes wide.
“He was a lieutenant by then. He rose quickly.”
“And he . . . ?”